[{"id":18280,"title":"Why does BBC‏ ‏promote my daughter’s murderer?","imageUrl":"/Storage/Images/2020/ahlam-ahmad-al-tamimi-1.png","author":[{"name":{"en":"arnold roth","he":""},"id":535,"about":"","citeName":{"he":"","en":"Roth, A."}}],"news":false,"contentType":"Article","authorId":[535],"published":true,"date":{"type":"firestore/timestamp/1.0","seconds":1602599040,"nanoseconds":0},"content":"

In August 2001, Ahlam Tamimi brought a guitar case filled with explosives to the ‎Sbarro Pizza shop in Jerusalem. She handed it to a suicide terrorist who detonated it in ‎the pizzeria, murdering 15 people, 8 of them children. Asked about the families and ‎children she murdered, Tamimi answered she had “no regrets.” When told that she ‎murdered 8 children she broke into a big smile. ‎

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Tamimi is the unrepentant child murderer who BBC Arabic TV chose to help last week ‎by broadcasting her appeal to the King of Jordan to help her reunite with her husband. ‎A Jordanian radio station had abruptly cut her off, refusing to let her deliver her ‎message.‎

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As soon as he discovered this BBC broadcast, Arnold Roth, whose 15-year-old ‎daughter Malki was one of the children murdered by Tamimi at Sbarro, called ‎Palestinian Media Watch. He wanted to alert us to how the BBC’s Arabic-language TV ‎channel had willingly served as mouthpiece for the terrorist responsible for the killing ‎of his daughter.‎

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Terrorist murderer Tamimi was sentenced to 16 life sentences, but was released after ‎only 10 years as part of the Shalit prisoner exchange deal between the Israeli ‎government and Hamas. (See below.)‎

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BBC’s service to a convicted murderer illustrates how major powers in the news ‎industry abuse their influence and support terror and terrorists. ‎

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PMW invited Mr. Roth to write today’s bulletin:‎

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The life of my daughter’s killer has an incredible trajectory. I wonder whether anything ‎like it has ever been seen before.‎

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Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi is a Jordanian by birth and education. In the short period ‎that she lived in the Palestinian Authority areas, she was a university student and a ‎part-time news-reader for an Islamist television station in Ramallah. ‎

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Simultaneously, she became active in Fatah and then crossed over to Hamas. She boasts that she was the first woman admitted to Hamas’ Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, which is responsible for the murder of hundreds in suicide bombings. And ‎she immediately set about finding opportunities to kill Jews.‎

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The first one ended in failure. She left a beer can filled with explosives in a ‎supermarket in the center of Jerusalem in July 2001. Something went wrong and the ‎only injuries were to her ambition and pride (though she subsequently lied, boasting in ‎TV interviews that she caused a massacre that “the Zionists” covered up). ‎

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She demanded of her operators a second chance to kill with a much larger explosive ‎and on Aug. 9, 2001, less than two weeks later, Hamas provided her with both. She ‎was 21 years old. The terror attack she orchestrated murdered 15, including 8 children, ‎one of them my daughter Malki. ‎

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Fast forward to last week’s BBC broadcast. ‎

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On Oct. 8, 2020, a program called “Trending” on BBC’s Arabic TV service beamed ‎throughout the world an item about Tamimi for the purpose of creating sympathy for the ‎child murderer. They told the oh-so-sad tale of how her husband Nizar Tamimi - who is ‎also a released terrorist - had been forced by Jordanian authorities to leave Jordan for ‎Qatar on Oct 1. ‎

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The program is part of BBC World Service programming funded by the UK’s Foreign ‎and Commonwealth Office.‎

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The BBC host told viewers that Tamimi is “back” in the headlines, skipped or twisted ‎the important background details about Tamimi’s murderous terror, and then described ‎how she phoned in to a popular Amman-based radio station and tried to appeal directly ‎to King Abdullah II to intervene and return her husband to Jordan. ‎

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As the Arabic-to-English transcript below shows, this was illustrated by video clips ‎showing what happened in the studio of the radio station and then some soft-focus ‎images from Tamimi’s life.‎

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It’s an outrageous piece of naked agitprop - political propaganda. Here are some of the ‎points BBC’s “Trending” skipped, distorted, or simply got wrong:

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None of the murdered victims of Tamimi’s terror attack were mentioned directly ‎or indirectly in the BBC report. Nor did they say she killed anyone. The BBC’s ‎editors airbrushed the victims out of this shabby narrative.‎

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The BBC says Ahlam Tamimi was “accused” of taking a role in the Sbarro terror ‎attack, implying doubt, and was sentenced to 16 life sentences. In reality, ‎Tamimi stopped being “accused” when she boastfully pleaded guilty to all the ‎charges brought against her in an Israeli court. But BBC hid this from its Arabic ‎speaking viewers. ‎

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Tamimi has gloated in public and repeatedly boasted of what she did. She has ‎called the massacre “my operation” and since she chose the site, brought the ‎terrorist and the explosives – it is clearly her murderous “operation.” When asked ‎about the families and children she murdered she said in front of the cameras ‎that she has “no regrets” and she would do it again if she could. She has left no ‎doubt as to what motivates her in life.‎

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Why 16 consecutive life terms? For the 15 lives Tamimi snuffed out by ‎delivering a human bomb to a pizza shop that she chose because of the ‎children who could reliably be found there at 2 in the afternoon on a school ‎vacation day. A 16th life belonged to a young mother who brought her two-year ‎old child into the pizzeria – and who remains in a vegetative coma today. Not ‎dead but surely not alive. ‎

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After her premature release from Israeli prison, Tamimi hosted a weekly TV show ‎of her own for nearly five years, between February 2012 and September 2016, ‎filmed in Jordan and produced by Hamas and Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood. ‎Though Jordan has a notoriously unfree media, Tamimi’s program had the full ‎knowledge and approval of Jordan’s government. Distributed globally “Breezes ‎of the Free” (Nasim Al-Ahrar) advocated for support of Palestinian Arab terrorist ‎prisoners, many of them murderers like Tamimi. ‎

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In taking up child-murderer Tamimi’s cause, BBC is picking up the baton from Hamas ‎TV. ‎

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If the BBC comes through this latest scandalous chapter unscathed, there will be many ‎losers. For giving a sympathetic megaphone to one of the world’s most loathsome, ‎unrepentant child murderers, the BBC must be brought to account. The power of its ‎brand, its high operating budget, and its smooth-talking self-justification may make this ‎hard to accomplish. However, the public cannot remain apathetic or BBC will continue ‎to feel free to glorify murderers of Israelis and Jews at will.‎

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Together with PMW, and in the name of our murdered child, my wife and I call on BBC ‎management to review what has just happened, to internalize the lessons of its terror ‎glorification. BBC must immediately remove the videos from YouTube, and issue a ‎sincere public apology to the families of Tamimi’s victims whose memories BBC has ‎desecrated by promoting their murderer. ‎

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Seeking Justice for the terror victims:‎

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$\"\"$ Ahlam Tamimi is also a fugitive from US justice, one of 28 people and only two women ‎on the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorists” list, since 2017.‎

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My wife and I have devoted years to generating greater awareness of the screaming ‎injustice that this murderer’s freedom embodies, together with the backing she gets in ‎the Arab world. ‎

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This doesn’t go easily and there is considerable push-back. But while the outcome of ‎our campaign to have Tamimi extradited is far from certain, we have seen progress. But ‎no one can deny the obstructive role played by parts of the media, like this BBC ‎program that provide this monstrous woman with the oxygen – public attention, ‎sympathy, and support – that is vital to her mission of staying free and inciting more ‎terror.‎

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If powerful media voices like the BBC would join the campaign to have this child-‎murderer spend the rest of her life in prison, achieving justice will be easier. We will ‎keep trying. Our goal is to see justice done and the toxic influence of Tamimi blunted, ‎this charismatic force for evil in the world. If we succeed, there will be many winners.‎

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In 2018, the US State Department announced a $5 million prize under its ‎‎“Rewards for Justice” program for information leading to Tamimi’s arrest or ‎conviction. But she has never been in hiding, not even for a day. She doesn’t ‎need to be because the Kingdom of Jordan is quietly and effectively keeping ‎her free and safe.‎

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The US is serious about wanting Tamimi to stand trial on Federal terrorism ‎charges in Washington. It has repeatedly but unsuccessfully pressed Jordan to ‎honor the Extradition Treaty signed between the Clinton Administration and the ‎current king’s father, King Hussein. Jordan’s government has handed over a ‎succession of Jordanian fugitive terrorists to the US under that treaty, but not ‎Tamimi. The BBC is not alone in knowing these facts and suppressing them. ‎

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The BBC should have known this and told its viewers what informed observers ‎understand: A Tamimi extradition is hard for Jordan because she is so popular. ‎Those dead Jewish children count for a lot in Jordanian public opinion.

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A popular Jordanian TV program called Caravan paid lavish tribute to both ‎Tamimis two years ago in a prime time show similar to “This is Your Life”. At a ‎certain point, the presenter (as I wrote in an article at the time) could barely ‎restrain her enthusiasm for the details of their murderous achievements: "This ‎is admirable!” she said. “You, the people of the struggle, elevate the name of ‎Jordan!" ‎

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The US Congress, on a bipartisan basis, brought into law less than a year ago a ‎powerful sanction that reports say it may yet impose: see "US considers ‎withholding aid to Jordan to force extradition", Associated Press, June 16, 2020). ‎

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We additionally call on BBC to counter the damage it has done by supporting a ‎terrorist, by using the force of its international media presence, to raise the call to ‎demand that Jordan take the moral step of extraditing the murderer to the US to stand ‎trial for murder. BBC should counter the platform they gave to the terrorist, by inviting ‎family members of the victims into their studios to raise the call for justice. It is the least ‎BBC could do now – after raising the voice of terror to the international media. ‎

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Ahlam Tamimi

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Gilad Shalit

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The following is more of the transcript promoting Ahlam Tamimi on BBC Arabic ‎

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Video title on BBC’s YouTube Channel: “#BBC_Trending – a radio station cut off a ‎phone call with Ahlam Tamimi because of her appeal to King of Jordan [Abdullah II] ‎during a live broadcast”‎

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Video description on BBC’s YouTube Channel: “‘Ahlam Tamimi, your voice is loud’ – ‎responses of solidarity on Jordanian and Palestinian sites with Palestinian Ahlam ‎Tamimi.”‎

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BBC Arabic host: “Ahlam Tamimi, the Jordanian prisoner of Palestinian origin… has ‎returned to the headlines following the expulsion of her husband Nizar to Doha ‎‎[Qatar]… The story of the relationship between these two people is that they first met in ‎the Israeli military courtroom, and were engaged inside the prisons… After their release ‎as part of a prisoner exchange deal in 2011… they got married and settled in Amman ‎‎[Jordan]…When Ahlam spoke [on Jordanian radio] about the decision to expel her ‎husband, and about her rights, and when she directed a request to [Jordan’s] king to ‎solve her problem, the broadcasters cut off the call … The staff of the [BBC] program ‎Trending reached out to Ahlam to hear her request to the Jordanian king, which was ‎cut off ... Let’s listen.”‎
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Released terrorist, led suicide bomber to target. 15 people murdered, Ahlam ‎Tamimi: I, Jordanian citizen Ahlam Tamimi, turn once again to His Majesty King ‎Abdullah II in order to be united with my husband Nizar Tamimi on the blessed land of ‎Jordan. It is my right to be beside my husband…‎
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Text on screen: ‎
\nShe was born in Zarqa in Jordan to Palestinian parents in 1980. ‎
\nShe was the first woman who joined the Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing.‎
\nThe Israeli forces arrested her in 2001.‎
\nShe was accused of participating in the bombing operation at the Sbarro restaurant in ‎Jerusalem .‎
\nShe was sentenced to 16 life sentences that add up to 1,584 years… ‎
\nShe and her husband were released in a deal that included 1,047 (sic., 1,027) ‎Palestinian prisoners… ‎
\nIn 2013 she was put on the wanted terrorists’ list of the US Department of Justice due ‎to her involvement in the murder of Americans… The Jordanian authorities have ‎rejected America’s extradition requests.‎
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[YouTube channel of BBC Arabic, Trending, Oct. 8, 2020]‎
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